There are presently available many different types of electrically powered toy aircrafts, such as propeller driven airplanes and helicopters. Some of the various arrangements include the provision of an airplane on the end of a pair of controlling hand-held lines, which are manually controlled by the operator as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,579,905 issued May 25, 1971 to J. T. Fadford and R. A. Mizrany. This type of an arrangement requires a high level of skill on the part of the operator, because the airplane must be operated at high speeds in order to maintain tension on the lines which control the height at which the airplane flies. Anyone who has flown such a toy will appreciate that any sudden exaggerated movement of the handle will result in an uncontrollable dive by the airplane.
Other arrangements have been suggested wherein an aircraft, such as a helicopter is provided at the end of a non-flexible rod secured to a rotating stand. However, with these arrangements, real flight conditions cannot be simulated due to the rigidity of the supporting rod, which does not permit unrestrained flight patterns, and quickly looses the interest of the operator.
A further arrangement has been used wherein an airplane is secured to a rotatable stand by means of flexible cords and lines. This arrangement again suffers from the drawback that it is not capable of providing imaginative flight patterns because the airplane simply flies in a circle around the stand at an essentially constant height as determined by the speed of the airplane and the attitude of the plane's elevators which are only adjustable prior to flight. Furthermore, because the airplane is not capable of maintaining flight above the supporting stand, its maneuverability is considerably limited.
Recently there has been a very keen interest in unidentified flying objects and more particularly, flying spaceships, and to the knowledge of the present inventor, no one has yet developed an electrically powered flying toy usable both within and outside of the home which is capable of three dimensional flight patterns at a multitude of different altitudes.
According to the present invention, a flying toy is provided which is highly maneuverable and capable of three dimensional flight patterns without requiring extensive skills on the part of the operator. Furthermore, it is extremely well balanced in order to avoid crashing during a flight pattern. The toy comprises a flying body and a flexible cable interconnecting the flying body and means for operating the flying body which may be in the form of either a hand-held control or a fixed rotating stand. The flying body which is capable of essentially free flight, is provided with four identical propellers rotatable in the horizontal plane for providing lift to the structure. These propellers are arranged in a rectangular pattern about a centrally located drive motor, which drives gear means for rotating the four identical propellers at the same speed, thereby ensuring the stability of the body at the end of the flexible cable. A fifth smaller propeller, which is also rotatable by the motor, is included to provide forward movement to the flying body. However, the effect of the smaller propeller is relatively insignificant compared to the effect of the larger propeller because the flying body is not dependent upon its forward speed for maintaining stability at the end of the flexible cable.